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(Generally it is a drag on the RAM, but the hypervisor can simply not allocate CPU time to any OS not the front one if it's an issue)

So 6 dB(a). Can't hurt, but I'd much rather hear an actual dB(a) number.

My first opinion is:

* Ugly as sin. Looks like something from the eighties. Going to be a terribly low WAF on that one.
* If you're pushing the fact that the SOC has 5 billion transistors, it is because you don't have anything else to push. It is an utterly pointless measurement, and probably just a result of that rumored eSRAM. Looks like Sony won the hardware battle this time.
* OTOH, MS has lots of games lined up already. They aim to hit the ground running. They may very well launch better than Sony, and that can translate into a head start that Sony never manages to catch up to.
* I guess we know why EA is canceling the online pass program.

Originally Posted by P

On the operating system thing: Apparently it will be running a hypervisor - a sort of mini-OS that hosts other OSes - which in turn runs two copies of Windows. One will be the Xbox-specific OS, which is a derivative of Windows, and the other is plain ol' Windows 8. If you count like MS seems to be doing, that makes it three operating systems. By first estimate, this will mean that you will be RAM constrained (Windows is not exactly a low-memory OS, and you'll be running it twice before even starting a game), but with 8 cores, you're likely to have a CPU core or 4 available.

(Sidenote: Sony was clearly pushed to 8GB of their expensive GDDR5 RAM by leaks that MS was putting that much in, and now we see that MS is actually wasting it by running their heavy OS twice. In all likelihood, Sony could have got away with 4GB RAM running equivalent games. That's a big chunk of their hardware budget right there.)

Everything else they're saying is indicating that all the leaks about performance are correct. Each CPU core can apparently execute "6 operations per cycle", which is very high (By comparison, Sandy Bridge can at most sustain 5 operations per cycle, but that only happens in very unusual circumstances when the code mix is just so) but MS might be counting strangely (e.g. counting dispatch ports instead of issue ports - in which case you might finish 6 operations one cycle, but only because you were limping along at a much lower rate before that). The bandwidth numbers also add up to the sort of eSRAM setup that was rumored, and the rumored GPU operations per cycle (768) match exactly with the rumored 12 GCN CU setup. Whoever was leaking had access to good intel.

I was hoping to hear you weigh in on all of this. Many thanks for the technical details.

If Sony's 8GB of GDDR5 was knee-jerk reaction to XBOX's rumored 8 GB of RAM, with the new revelations of the OS using 3 GB of it, the PS4 now looks to absolutely dominate the One graphically. Being a big fan of open world games, I value RAM over CPU and I can't imagine what kind of restrictions we'll see lifted with that kind of pool of resources.

Then again, maybe the One will just hold back multiplat titles.

Still, I have a sinking feeling that Sony wildly jacked up the cost of the PS4 in what turned out to be a mistaken attempt to feature match the One.

"What we're doing with the digital permissions that we have for Xbox One is no different to that. If I am playing on that disc, which is installed to the hard drive on my Xbox One, everybody in my household who has permission to use my Xbox One can use that piece of content. [So] I can give that piece of content to my son and he can play it on the same system.

So you can share games on a single console just like now.

"I can come to your house and I can put the disc into your machine and I can sign in as me and we can play the game," he explained.

But what if you want to bring a game disc to a friend's house and play there? You'll have to pay a fee—and not just some sort of activation fee, but the actual price of that game—in order to use a game's code on a friend's account. Think of it like a new game, Harrison said.

Well that was obfuscatory for no reason. The fee is the cost of the game. Well, no shit.

Another piece of clarification around playing games at a friend’s house – should you choose to play your game at your friend’s house, there is no fee to play that game while you are signed in to your profile.

Yeah, great. My friend wants to try the game but he can only do it on my profile. Stupid.

Kotaku: If I’m playing a single player game, do I have to be online at least once per hour or something like that? Or can I go weeks and weeks?

Harrison: I believe it’s 24 hours.

Kotaku: I’d have to connect online once every day.

Harrison: Correct.

Don't try to game after a natural disaster outage, I guess.

Update: Sounds like things are a mess over at Microsoft. Now they're telling Polygon that Harrison's comments illustrate a "potential scenario."

"While Phil [Harrison] discussed many potential scenarios around games on Xbox One, today we have only confirmed that we designed Xbox One to enable our customers to trade in and resell games at retail," a Microsoft rep said. "There have been reports of a specific time period — those were discussions of potential scenarios, but we have not confirmed any details today, nor will we be"

Xbox One you sign in to; stable, dedicated servers for every multiplayer game rather than the notoriously fragile practice of hosting matches on one participant’s console; even multiplayer matches that can grow to 64, even 128 participants, rather than the usual limit of 16 or 32.

“It was my impression at the presentation that it [the Xbox One] was going to come packed in with the Kinect sensor array. It didn’t looked like it was packed in with the headset which to me having the headset was included in the last generation was really a pretty crucial thing that drove chat and media and Xbox Live whilst Sony went with the piecemeal bluetooth accessory thing and in my opinion that really helped Xbox Live become a destination for multiplayer gaming. Do you feel that the new Kinect sensor replaces the headset in terms of multiplayer chat or why aren’t you including a headset?”

CNET: Kinect now needs to be on all the time. But there are obviously some people who say "I don't want this camera in my living room."
Henshaw: If you want privacy, we'll give you modes that ensure your privacy. And we actually have a little bit about this on the Web already. We will have something similar for the Kinect with Xbox One. The system is designed to have Kinect be an integral part of the experience. It's not the case where you'll be able to remove the camera altogether. But you'll be able to put the system in modes where you can be completely secure about the fact that the camera is off and can't see you.

CNET: There seems to be some confusion here about the ability to resell Xbox One games, or reuse Xbox One games among other users.
Henshaw: Let me clear that up unequivocally. Xbox One will support the reselling and used game market for Xbox One games. We have not announced details about exactly how it's going to work, or how licenses are going to be exchanged. That's all coming up later in the year. What we have announced is that a used game ecosystem will be supported, so people can breathe easy. They will be able to get used games.

My prediction is they're going to create a RMAH-like service where they get a cut of all resold activation codes.

So basically, what is on the game disc is an installer and possibly some content, not the executable itself. At first install, it is tied to your profile, much like a key code on Steam is tied to a single user account when first entered. In fact, it's exactly like Steam except that the installer comes on a small piece of plastic instead of over the network.

And then, there is one innovation: each device is tied to a single "master account", and any other account that logs in on that machine can play any game the master account has installed. Right? Or maybe the default is off, and you have to enable game-account combinations in the parental controls, but that seems to be how it works.

Finally, there was some comment about how licenses could be transferred, something that I'm sure MS never planned to implement unless forced to do so.

That was yesterday. Then Gamestop saw the news and called MS and told them that they wouldn't sell a console that they couldn't sell used games for, so today MS is backtracking. They're going back to the drawing board to try to come up with a solution that everyone is happy with, but I'm fairly certain that the price they paid EA for all that support with new exclusives was that used game sales would be blocked or at least that publishers would get a cut. Trouble is, Gamestop gets that cut today, and they don't want to relinquish it.

The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.

My opinion on XBO:
1. They were a little too focused on "TV". Personally I do not watch TV (just netflix, DVD, BluRay). I'm doubt this will resonate with the "first wave audience" (gamers), or the wider market.
2. Not enough about games and exclusives (maybe that was left for E3 on purpose).
3. The hardware industrial design does not look "consumer friendly". It harkens back to the days when people hid their PCs in cabinets and under tables. (I think the original XB360 had a better design). The XBO reminds me of dev units sent out to developers.

1. Yes, yes, yes. If you're not going to cater to cord-cutters, then why make (physically) extending your existing cable through your XBox One the priority of your console reveal? I've read a lot of articles comparing it to the Google TV, and I don't think that's unfair.
2. Saying, "15 exclusives are coming!" is a lot different than actually showing exclusives like Killzone: Shadow Fall, Infamous: Second Son, Knack, Driveclub, Beyond: Two Souls, and The Witness (timed exclusive), then non-exlusives like Watch Dogs and Deep Down at your reveal (that admittedly was more of a software reveal than a PS4 reveal). The XBox One is not a gamer-centric machine, and while that might rub some of us the wrong way, it doesn't mean others aren't excited about yelling, "XBox, on!"
3. It's freaking huge...

(look at the size of the Kinect)

Where am I going to find room for that thing? It's going to look ridiculous in front of my TV, which has a fairly thin bezel.

Still, I have a sinking feeling that Sony wildly jacked up the cost of the PS4 in what turned out to be a mistaken attempt to feature match the One.

That's what I think too. Of course Sony will use some of that 8 GB for their OS as well, but basically: the PS4 has a higher total memory bandwidth, double the texture filtering power and more memory available for the game. All of this translates into prettier textures with better filtering - a change that can easily be made while making a multiplatform game. I'm more concerned about MS trying to prevent that in their licensing terms.

The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.

It was a good post. But more importantly, if there's a coverall Gold for a console, now that they've eliminated family plans, all I can think is, Gold price increase coming (doubly so if the dedicated server rumor is true).

Where am I going to find room for that thing? It's going to look ridiculous in front of my TV, which has a fairly thin bezel.

Get yourself a TV stand and put them under the TV. While I agree with you that it is large, it's just as big as my set-top cable/PVR box or DVD/VHS player. Fortunately I still have a rear-projection TV and these boxes are on top of my TV. When I get a LED thin TV, I'll put then below in the TV stand.

Get yourself a TV stand and put them under the TV. While I agree with you that it is large, it's just as big as my set-top cable/PVR box or DVD/VHS player. Fortunately I still have a rear-projection TV and these boxes are on top of my TV. When I get a LED thin TV, I'll put then below in the TV stand.

Of course now he's going to tell me he has his TV on the wall.

It's the Kinect that causes an obstruction issue. While the XBox One is large, I have space in my TV stand for it.

The Kinect will need to be front and center, placed in front of the TV. The TV's support stand (that came with it) places the viewable LED display 3 inches above the base, meaning if the Kinect is in front of my TV, where it should be, it's possibly going to protrude into the display area.

All my griping aside, I probably will buy an XBox One at some point in the future, but will wait until the first eventual price drop.

If the PS4 is over $400, I don't see myself immediately shelling out for it either, although I'll probably eat those words in five months.

I can attest to the original PS3 being an absolutely mammoth, and the XBox One appears to be wider by only a slim margin. In the end, the size of the console is a minor detail so long as the experience meets expectations. I look forward to E3.

I wouldn't kill them if they pulled it back to DDR3 with the explanation, "We didn't want to price this thing at $600 again.

Doing so would mean dropping the memory bandwidth to a third, and since they don't have a big cache to act as frame buffer, that would absolutely kill performance. Either they'd have to put in the same sort of cache as MS has, or have AMD add another memory controller to make a NUMA system (ie, two unequal memory pools, much like any PC with a graphics card). That way they could let the CPU work on a 4GB DDR3 pool (probably only 64-bit wide) and let the GPU keep the current GDDR5 memory bus to another pool. Actually, you might even make it 8 GB DDR3 and only 2GB GDDR5, or 3GB DDR3 with a 192 bit bus for something that runs much like a gaming PC. Apparently they got some serious pushback from developers over the PS3 design, and how reading from the wrong memory pool was abysmal (something like 1/1000th of the speed when reading from the "right" pool), so they decided on a single memory pool. That has advantages in that it is magnificently easy to develop for, and is forward-looking in that many think that that is the way future PCs will look, but it is expensive in the short term.

The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.

I really despise PR people. For all the flack Sony has gotten for saying nothing, its better than trying to parse bullshit. Now MS wants to stall negative press because they have positive things to announce that will diffuse the situation, but they don't want to announce those positive things because they have a PR timetable and god forbid it be upset.

AMD timed their release of the "Jaguar" processor - the base for the CPU part of both the PS4 and the XBone - to come right after MS' reveal. Anand has a test of a prototype laptop with one of them. With the caveats that the clockspeed is slightly lower than the rumored clockspeed in PS4/XBone (1.5 GHz vs. 1.6 GHz), there is 4 cores instead of 8, and all the graphics tests are of course completely irrelevant, it might still be interesting:

TL;DR: the improvement versus Brazos is about 20%, which is a significant achievement. While a modern Intel Core i5 chip still beats it by a significant margin, it is not quite the rout I would have expected - remember that with turbo, the i5 has a clockspeed advantage of 70%. On the multithreaded tests, an 8-core model should beat the i5, and it won't lose too terribly on the single-threaded. Compared to the intricate threading challenges of the Cell and the Xenon (wasn't it?), this is a big improvement.

All in all, pleasantly surprised. Good job by AMD for once.

The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.

Location: Iowa, how long can this be? Does it really ruin the left column spacing?

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May 23, 2013, 10:44 AM

CNET: Kinect now needs to be on all the time. But there are obviously some people who say "I don't want this camera in my living room."
Henshaw: If you want privacy, we'll give you modes that ensure your privacy. And we actually have a little bit about this on the Web already. We will have something similar for the Kinect with Xbox One. The system is designed to have Kinect be an integral part of the experience. It's not the case where you'll be able to remove the camera altogether. But you'll be able to put the system in modes where you can be completely secure about the fact that the camera is off and can't see you.

If you're going to shorten it that way, you have to leave a space between "XB" and "one". Looks too close to "Xbone", which sounds like some sexual act with the new Xbox... and I don't want that picture in my head...

If you're going to shorten it that way, you have to leave a space between "XB" and "one". Looks too close to "Xbone", which sounds like some sexual act with the new Xbox... and I don't want that picture in my head...

I read it as Crossbone, as in Skull & Crossbones, but I know that you are not alone in that interpretation.

As for the PA Report piece: I don't always agree with Kuchera, but this time we are on the same page. I'm just not certain that the end of used game sales at retail will happen all that smoothly.

The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.

He's forgetting that they don't buy next gen consoles, they buy last gen consoles. It was a big deal when we got an Atari second hand from someone who got a Nintendo. He's obviously never been lower middle class.

He's forgetting that they don't buy next gen consoles, they buy last gen consoles. It was a big deal when we got an Atari second hand from someone who got a Nintendo. He's obviously never been lower middle class.

We also have these things called lay-away, credit cards, gifts, sales, and price drops. Not to mention that rumored subsidized model.

Yeah I'd like to hear that too. There is no customer benefit I can see.

The ONLY way I can see it as a good deal is if they get their pricing model addressed (a la Steam). No one cares about used games on the PC because you can get good deals on ANY product, old or new at anytime. With Consoles $60 is a lot of money for what you get. Lets face it the majority of games are not worth $60. Since there is no money back guarantee on games and there aren't even demos for some, that is a risk most don't take. I NEVER preorder, and rarely by games at launch because of that. Reviews can be skewed with these game sites so that's not even a real gauge of trust anymore. As a customer I don't care if a publisher spends $100M to make a game and it's crap. We all spend money on games we think are good, to us. We as customers don't buy games based on development work and effort and work, we buy games based on if they are good or not. Simple as that. Your job isn't going to pay you based on if you work hard, yet yield no results. If anything Gamestop and Steam has shown year in and out that the price point of these games is too high, but consoles are the only ones that refuse to see it.

Geez, I'm probably the opposite of excalibur. I wouldn't buy a game at Gamestop for any money. The used games, they never include the manuals, and they always want you to buy their warrantee for if the CD is scratched. I'd rather buy new (since I can afford it), and at if it's a bad disk I can take it back. As well, I'm starting to hate the fact that Gamestop opens all their games, even the new ones - I've had issues with this (codes not workin' - luckily I didn't really need that code). I've also had a few problems with their pre-order stuff and not receiving some of the stuff promised. So I stopped buying there. But maybe their just bad in Canada.

Heck, half my new games I probably get on sale or free with gift cards anyways. Basically, I'm saying I have no issues with the price of games for the XBox. Heck, I was a Mac gamer in the old days, we're used to paying a price for games. But now I'm getting them for cheaper, with the sales and gift cards. Now I'm getting them cheaper with sales and gift cards... couldn't be happier...

Geez, I'm probably the opposite of excalibur. I wouldn't buy a game at Gamestop for any money. The used games, they never include the manuals, and they always want you to buy their warrantee for if the CD is scratched. I'd rather buy new (since I can afford it), and at if it's a bad disk I can take it back. As well, I'm starting to hate the fact that Gamestop opens all their games, even the new ones - I've had issues with this (codes not workin' - luckily I didn't really need that code). I've also had a few problems with their pre-order stuff and not receiving some of the stuff promised. So I stopped buying there. But maybe their just bad in Canada.

Heck, half my new games I probably get on sale or free with gift cards anyways. Basically, I'm saying I have no issues with the price of games for the XBox. Heck, I was a Mac gamer in the old days, we're used to paying a price for games. But now I'm getting them for cheaper, with the sales and gift cards. Now I'm getting them cheaper with sales and gift cards... couldn't be happier...

Gamestop will open and verify in front of you before purchase, I do it every time. Most have manuals, if not don't buy (I understand your view on that). Not only that you can take it back and exchange for another game within 14 days no matter what. However, if you are the type who rushes through games there you go. I understand about not have manuals and all and the 'generic cases. You can select and choose though. I have NEVER been offered a warranty on any gamestop I've ever been to. They WILL bug the hell out of you for a preorder though. LOL I get a lot of my games through amazon on deals as well, but I'm not going to hate on Gamestop for political reasons. There had been quite a few times I had games just laying around, took them in and traded for a new copy with no money out of pocket. I just like to have options out there as a consumer.